I’m a technology journalist and currently write for websites such as bit-tech.net and magazines such as Custom PC and Computer Active. I’ve been building and modifying PCs for 20 years and writing about them for over six years. I’ve reviewed countless pieces of hardware and peripherals and also have a passion for all things tech - from Microsoft Windows to Apple iOS, PC gaming to iPhone jailbreaking. I’ll be offering guides, tips and insights into current and future trends, PC tweaking, the weird and wonderful world of PC modding and plenty of gadget-orientated articles.

How To Replace The iPhone 5's Battery

If you’ve owned your iPhone 5 since its launch last year, chances are its battery is already starting to lose capacity. In other words, from a full charge, it won’t last as long, meaning you have less time to play with away from a power socket.

However, there is something you can do to resolve the problem. Opening your iPhone is often seen as heresy, given many of Apple'sApple's products aren’t user-serviceable.

If there’s one thing that really bugged me when making the switch from an early, hideous MicrosoftMicrosoft Windows smartphone to an Apple iPhone around six years ago, it was that the battery wasn’t user-replaceable.

At least, you couldn’t just slide off the rear cover and replace the battery, like you can with pretty much any other smartphone made today.

This means that using third party higher capacity batteries or even replacing an old worn-out battery was going to be extremely difficult. There are plenty of reasons why you’d want to as well. Apple currently states that:

A properly maintained iPhone battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 full charge and discharge cycles.

For a heavy user like me, this represents around a year and a half of use assuming I charge it most days, which I do. How much it loses after this is anyone’s guess but from my own experience, the degradation process can even speed up. This means after two years, the difference will most definitely be noticeable and may even have become an annoyance.

This is especially true given how most smartphone owners consider current smartphone batteries to be woefully inadequate to start with, and Apple’s Lithium Ion batteries aren’t the only ones to degrade over time – they all do.

Thankfully, a number of people, including Apple, have realized that many owners keep their iPhones for several years or more and as such, would probably find the depleted batteries to be pretty annoying.

Apple has for some time offered a battery replacement service for all its devices that don’t feature user-replaceable batteries. The cost varies but for an iPhone it will set you back around $80 plus shipping. There is another, much cheaper way, though, and it’s something you can do from home and in less than ten minutes too. It also means you won’t be without your iPhone for days or even weeks either.

The iPhone 5 is a very compact phone but thankfully the battery is the easiest component to replace, if you can get inside that is. Using a $15 battery replacement kit, which includes a new battery plus tools to open the device, it can take as little as a few minutes to replace the battery and done carefully there’s little chance you’ll damage your device, although this is all done at your own risk and you’ll need some steady hands.

1. You can purchase a replacement battery and the necessary iPhone 5 battery tool kit from Amazon – beware ordering off eBay, especially from international sellers as the batteries are often cheap knockoffs.

2. The tool kit comes with a hex head screwdriver, which you use to remove two screws at the base of the phone

3. Here’s the tricky bit – attach the suction cup to the bottom of the screen and pull to remove the screen from the casing. The home button end of the iPhone isn’t attached inside – only the ear piece end is. This can prove quite tricky but I found that attaching the cup to the side of the home button and pulling hard while holding the outside of the casing did the trick.

4. Don’t lift the lid more than 90 degrees as the other end is still attached as you can see below.

5. Inside you’ll see a small metal plate held on by two screws. Use the included screwdriver to undo them.

6. Use a plastic pick to detach the battery cable connector.

7. The battery is held on with glue but a plastic sleeve underneath allows you to pull the battery out. You might need to use the plastic pic from the other side too.

8. Insert your new battery and connect it to the battery terminal.

9. Reinstall the metal clip and close the casing. Test the phone powers on then re-insert the base screws

10. Lithium Ion batteries should not just be thrown away – you can safely dispose of your battery by visiting www.ehso.com in the U.S. or at most recycling centers.

You’re done! So what results can you expect? Well, our iPhone 5 is nearly 14 months old so has probably been through 400 or so charge cycles. To start with it was much faster at charging, reaching 100 per cent from flat 18 minutes faster than the old battery. However, this could of course mean our battery holds less power and takes less time to charge as a result.

So, for our power drain test, we created an eight-hour high definition video, uploaded it to YouTube and streamed it over WiFi at full screen brightness till the battery died – a high-drain scenario. Our original battery lasted five hours and 11 minutes of continuous playback, while the new one lasted an additional 35 minutes - an increase of over 11%.

This is a welcome boost to battery performance, although if you’re quite happy with your device it would be worth waiting till you’ve reached 500-600 charge cycles to see more a significant benefit.

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We’ve had our 2 iphone 4′s for OVER 2 years and we have NO problems with the batteries. They last just about all day long. They get moderate use each day. I dont know what people are doing with their phones, but we have no complaints with the iPhone. I will say that I had a Galaxy S before this, and for a “non” techie, Android was just plain PAINFUL to use. Lockups, crashing apps, phone issues in general. (The GPS in the phone was really nice though)… :)

I have owned my iPhone since the launch of iphone5 and I don’t have any battery problems. The article title implies to everyone that iPhone 5 has a declining battery life problem. Their battery is WAAAAAAyYYY better than the competition. Who owns Forbes? You must be a Fandroid or Msft stock holder. iPhone is the best period battery. I have friends that have android, and they carry 2 spare batteries. I am on the same charge for the day as they run out of power with one battery then two and on to their third.

I’m not saying the iPhone 5 has battery issues – Apple themselves state that after 500 charge cycles, you’ll likely lose 20% capacity, which is why they themselves offer a battery replacement service. What I’m saying here is why pay them over $80 to do it, including being without your phone in the meantime, when you could do it for less than $20 and in 10 minutes.

It’s just the way these types of batteries work – some might last longer but they’ll still loose capacity the more you use them. Most tests I’ve seen have the iPhone comparing favorably but it’s not drastically better, if at all, than other smartphones. The reason why Android users carry additional batteries is because they can swap them out easily – just charge a few separately then you’re good for days of heavy use away from a power socket. For my iPhone 5 I’ve bought a battery pack case for the same reason. Normally I charge mine every day as I’m a heavy user. The battery pack case stretches this to two days which is brilliant.

I’m sorry, but I think the figure saying that you only lose 20% capacity after 500 charge cycles is completely fabricated (by Apple). I would be more than happy to get even close to 80% of original charge on my iPhone 5. Apple has made their batteries so hard to replace because it is part of their planned obsolescence, which requires you to buy a new one much more quickly. This, among other things, is why I will be going with the Note III next.

Also, I don’t know how you and some of the commenters can say that iPhone 5 (or even 5s) batteries have compared favorably with other smartphones. That simply isn’t the case. Ex:

http://news.yahoo.com/tests-show-iphone-5s-behind-other-smartphones-in-battery-life-185724652.html (iphone battery is awful in comparison to all other smartphones)

Some sites I’ve seen have it more favourably placed – it depends which tests you and where you look but a direct comparison isn’t really possible for the simple reason the iPhone 5 and more recent 5S and 5C are much smaller than many of their competitors so can house smaller batteries. For example, the iPhone 5 has a small 1440mAh battery while the larger Samsung Galaxy S4 can house a more substantial 2600mAh one. However, it’s larger screen etc means that this is also used up more quickly…

Anyone wondering if they can really do this…. YES, you absolutely can and it works exactly like Antony says it will. Just a word of caution when you remove the battery post screws… they’re very tiny and difficult to put back in after you’ve replaced your old battery. I used tweezers to gently place the screw in their proper sockets and it worked like a charm.

Where do you get the replacement battery and how much do they run? If you compare the cost of replacing it at the Apple store versus buying the kit, battery, and doing it yourself, how much to you save?

Thanks! I know I’m a bit late to comment but I was able to replace my battery on my 18-month-old, heavily used iPhone 5, bolstered by the confidence I had from reading this article. Most of the other comments on here are wildly unhelpful and snarky, so this is for anyone who reads this after me and wonders if they could do this themselves. You can. Move slowly, because there is a lot of stuff that can go awry if you don’t know what you are doing. Make sure you are using the right tools for the job, since the screws on the outside use the pentalobe driver and the ones on the inside use a teeny Phillips head, and my eyesight was not good enough to see this at first. My biggest issue was how stuck to the inside of the phone the original battery was, and my reluctance to pull hard enough to get it out (hint: use the plastic pick to work it loose from both sides–I had a metal spatula looking thing in my kit that worked magic). The whole thing still took me less than ten minutes.

I paid about $30 for the kit on Amazon, though you can probably get it a lot cheaper if you are willing to wait for it (I had it overnighted, as I was in a batteryless jam) and also if you aren’t picky about the seller’s rating.

Antony, thank you for sharing this thorough and eloquent article in what to do about replacing the battery in our iPhones. This will certainly will help me save money and gain new experience with fixing issues. Thanks again!